DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Abstract) Continued career development will come from a combination of new research projects and new questions from older projects, leading to new methods and to new as well as continuing collaborations. This will be facilitated by the thriving neuroscience community at Emory University, which includes many principal investigators conducting research on issues related to drug abuse, and by the recent expansion of faculty and breadth of research within the Dept. of Pharmacology. The proposed research focuses on the behavioral pharmacology of opioids and, to a smaller extent, cocaine, and reflects current grant support from NIDA. Specific aims include testing hypotheses about acute opioid dependence in rats and squirrel monkeys and the functional state of endogenous opioid systems in adult rats that had undergone daily maternal separation during the early postnatal period. Trainees at various academic levels - undergraduate, pre- and postdoctoral - will participate in this research program each year. An important goal will be to provide them with the intellectual skills needed for a career of research on the behavioral pharmacology of drugs of abuse. In addition, the Candidate will continue to engage in nonresearch activities that contribute to overall career development, such as teaching neurobehavioral pharmacology, membership on journal editorial boards and government advisory committees, and holding elected office in scientific organizations.